1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of backup software for backing up computer system data, and more particularly, to a system and method for escalating a level of backup protection for a cluster of computer system nodes in response to detecting a failure of a node in the cluster.
2. Description of the Related Art
Clustering technology enables multiple independent nodes (computer systems) to be connected together through software to increase the availability of an application. For example, in a two-node cluster, one of the nodes may be designated as the active primary node that runs the application under normal circumstances, and the other node may be designated as a standby secondary node that is ready to take the place of the primary node if necessary, e.g., due to a disaster or failure of the primary node. In the event that the primary node fails or one or more of the application resources on the primary node fail and cannot be re-started, the clustering software may detect the failure and activate the standby secondary node to take over running the application. This is called a failover.
Each node in the cluster may have its own respective instances or copies of the resources required by the application. For example, if the application uses a database then both the primary node and the secondary node may host their own respective replicas of the database. Changes that occur to the database on the primary active node may be replicated to the database on the standby secondary node to keep the replicas synchronized. Thus, in the event of a failover, the application data on the secondary node is already up to date so that the secondary node can quickly begin running the application.